Fire Time (28 page)

‘First, what about the legion?’ Sparling asked, mollified. He scrambled across the scree, which rattled and slipped toward an overhang whereunder he saw a scrap of shade.

‘Weapons continue sheathed,’ Adissa reported. ‘But fire has spoiled the nearby hunting grounds, and the commandant sends out no more parties. The ship that brought me carried supplies and a few soldiers. I am told it was the last that the legion – the units of our legion not already here – can afford, and nobody else will help.’

The pair settled down below the cliff. Adissa switched on a recorded voice, Goddard Hanshaw’s:

‘Hi, there, you two. I thought you’d like an updating, though to tell the truth, very little about it is likable. We’re personally well, I hasten to say. But things are pretty much at a standstill, or “standoff” might be more accurate.

‘Fact is, you’ve become a symbol, a rallying point,
je ne sais que
the hell to call you.

‘The usual situation. People live their lives meekly, but all the while their anger concentrates, and at last it’s super-saturated and anything can make it crystallize out, rock hard. In the present case … well, I can’t say exactly what. News from the battlefront, which is stalemated again, except not quiet: instead, a meat grinder. And on top of that, two popular, valuable members of our community are barbarians’ pawns because of this same futile thing.

‘Suddenly Primavera’s gone on strike. Every long-time resident, and even most short-contract workers, refusing any kind of co-operation whatsoever. They won’t as much as speak to a man in uniform or a “collaborator”. Those who might prefer to behave differently, well, they don’t feel it’s worth becoming traitors in the eyes of their friends.

‘Which is causing trouble aplenty, as you can guess. Captain Dejerine appeals to me damn near daily. By tacit
consent, I’m the single Primaveran who can have to do with his command and stay kosher; it’s recognized that somebody must. He made a few arrests, but as soon as he saw they were considered an honor, he released the prisoners and dismissed the charges. He’s neither stupid nor wicked, you know. I feel sorry for him. He asked rather pathetically to be informed the moment any news of you came in. We haven’t mentioned this communication line to him.

‘Between us, I’m not sure the community is being wise. I have no notion what the resistance will lead to. Maybe we’ll get cancellation of the Navy project; or maybe our last funds will be cut off; who can tell? I did feel you should know how matters stand, in case you do any dickering on your own hook. And I’ll keep you posted. Meanwhile, don’t worry about us. As the saying goes, the situation is desperate but not serious.
A vuestra salud.
Next, here’s Rhoda.’

‘Bom dia, querido,’
said the woman’s voice, and went on with a few endearments and wishes in Portuguese. Sparling clenched fists and jaws, and endured. ‘Jill,’ Rhoda finished in English, ‘your parents, your sister, her family send their love.’ Were those unshed tears in her voice? ‘I hope you will take mine too. Live well. Thank you for what you are, what you do. I pray for your safe return. Good-by.’

Silence whirred. ‘That is the end,’ Adissa reported.

‘Okay,’ Sparling said mechanically. ‘We’ll sign off.’

He sat for a while staring across the scorched mountains. Jill laid an arm around his waist. ‘You have a finer wife than I deserve,’ she said.

‘No,’ he mumbled. ‘I mean, you’re clean and brave and– Look, we can’t yet do anything about anything, can we?’
Is that the question of a coward?
‘In spite of my personal feelings,’ he slogged on, ‘I share God’s doubts. A general strike against the Navy – the Peace Control – damnation, those men serve us all!’

‘Don’t agonize,’ she begged him. ‘Although–’

When her words trailed off, he turned his head and saw the clear profile against raw rock and cruel air, framed in tresses which were held by the circlet that a soldier of a legion had given her. ‘I wonder why Dad or Mother or Alice
– even Bill – weren’t on that tape,’ she said into emptiness. ‘Do I know them too well?’

She squared her shoulders. ‘Now I’m being a worry machine myself,’ she declared. ‘Hell with it. C’mon, hoofer, let’s get back down to the hall. But kiss me first.’

A while afterward, the time ended that had been theirs.

From his easternmost watchtower, Larreka squinted across the docks of Port Rua and the legion’s few ships, at the hostile fleet standing into the bay. Fifty-eight lean hulls he counted – fifty-eight mainsails tinged red by the newly risen Rover. The Sun, not much higher, dazzled his eyes with long rays that splintered and showered off amethyst wavelets. He could barely make his tally, and doubted that the garrison artillery could strike home a stone or a fire arrow against that glare. The barbarians had no such handicap; and the wind, already hot, was behind them too. It fluttered and snapped the banner above him.

‘Kaa-aa,’
said Seroda, his adjutant. ‘Who’d have supposed they could muster than many?’

‘Their chief’s a wily beast,’ Larreka nodded. ‘He kept them in motion, in small groups, raiding amongst the islands and along the coasts. That way, we never got a real idea of the whole number of ’em. But he told their skippers to rendezvous at a particular time and place– I’d guess Plowshare Straits on Midsummer Day – and there they got their orders.’ He tugged his whiskers.
‘Gr-r-rm,
that can’t be his whole navy, not by a long cast. The bulk of it’s doubtless outblockading, in case anybody should try sending us help.’

‘Then why are these here?’

‘To cut us off. If we embarked on an unguarded bay, we’d have a fair chance of evading them at sea and getting home to fight on.’ Larreka’s glance traveled across the town, low
adobe buildings huddled together and painted in forlornly bright colors, to the river on which its western wall fronted, shallower now than erstwhile so that rocks gleamed like basking monsters, and over the brown and black land enclosing the rest of the world. Dust devils were awhirl out there, dancers who related some violent dream. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘the campaign’s begun. Their foot should arrive shortly.’

In a moment he added, ‘Their top male is committing one foolishness, though. He’s forgotten the good old military principle: Always leave your opponent a line of retreat.’

‘They must expect us to surrender eventually,’ Seroda added.

‘A retreat of sorts,
yai?
? But, you see, it isn’t really. Those ships yonder say different. And in Valennen, especially these days, you can’t support a lot of idle prisoners. Either they massacre us or they put us to work – as slaves, scattered around the country, in mines and quarries, chained to wagons or plows or mill wheels– Me, I’d prefer the massacre.’ Larreka ended on an oath, for he realized that he’d better assemble his troops while time remained and explain this to them. He hated making speeches.

After two sixty-fours in the legion, Seroda had no need to disclaim fear or lack of loyalty. He could say, ‘We might yet work out something. After all, it’d cost them plenty to take this post by force. They might still prefer to let us go.’

‘In that case,’ Larreka said, ‘it’s our reason for staying.’

Those barbarians whom the Zera Victrix killed in its last hours would not be available for an attack on Meroa and her children.

While the double afternoon blazed, the Tassu host reached Port Rua. They camped in their groundshaking thousands a kilometer from the walls, in an arc between river and bay shore. Their grotesque standards, pole-mounted animal or ancestor skulls, tails of slain foes, carven totems, made a forest wherein spearheads flashed as if it bore fruit. Their drums thuttered, their horns lowed, they shouted and sang and galloped to and fro in a smoke of dust.

The town walls were banked earth under a high stockade of phoenix, every log sharpened. Flanked by the towers at the corners, bartizans alternated with bastions. Each of the latter held a catapult throwing several darts at once, or a mangonel with incendiary ammunition. Below the landward slope was a dry ditch in whose bottom bristled pointed stakes. Soldiers lined the walkways back of the wall tops, mail and shields burnished, plumes and pennons flying like the banners enstaffed overhead. Space among archers were the few who had rifles.

Upon his return here, Larreka had shipped out most civilians, or they had left voluntarily. Those who remained were wives and servants, many native-born, practically members of the legion themselves. Their labor and nursing would be valuable.
We’re not in such bad shape,
he reflected.
Yet
.

A horn resounded thrice, and two loped from a gaudy pavilion. The first was a stripling who dipped the flag he carried in a signal for truce. The second was huge and gold-bedight.
Arnanak in person!
Larreka thought upon his lofty post.
Should I go talk to him? Their ethics wink at treachery.

No, wait, he is a brother in the Lodge.

And, over protests of his officers, Larreka ordered the north gate opened and its drawbridge lowered. Alone he went forth. He left off armor – why broil himself? – and wore simply his Haelen blade, a pouch, and a red cloak. The last was a confounded flapping nuisance, but Seroda had insisted the commandant couldn’t look too shabby when he met their gorgeous rival.

Arnanak spoke to his attendant, who swung flag in salute. He himself stuck sword in soil. With Larreka he exchanged the handclasp and words of their mystery.

Then: ‘Hail and haleness to you, sir,’ he said. ‘Much would it gladden me if we could lay down the death-spears we bear.’

‘Good idea,’ Larreka said, ‘and easily done. Just go on home.’

‘Would you do the same?’

‘I am at home.’

‘We couldn’t set you wholly free anyhow,’ Arnanak sighed. ‘You had that chance earlier. Now I must make an end of the Zera.’

‘Go right ahead and try, sonny boy. But then what’re we talking about, when we could be in the shade drinking beer?’

‘I have an offer, because you are brave males. Surrender. We will cut off your right hands and keep you fed till you recover, then release you in your ships. You will never soldier again, but you will return.’

‘Ng-ng.’ Larreka grinned into the earnest green eyes. ‘I could make a counter-offer, though I’d ask for a different part of your anatomies. But why bother?’

‘I would like you to live,’ Arnanak urged. ‘Indeed, we’ll leave whole any who join us.’

‘Do you think that kind would be worth having?’
Yes, they would be, on account of their skills.

‘Otherwise it is death for all, save those unlucky few we capture and put to work.’ Arnanak flung wide his great black hands. Light glinted and rippled off golden arm-rings. ‘You have no hope. If naught else, we can starve you.’

‘We’re stocked up, including wells that give a better grade of water than you’ll dip out of the estuary. This hinterland’s picked clean where it isn’t burnt off. Want to see who gets hungry first? I’ll race you.’

‘Aye.’ Arnanak didn’t seem annoyed at having his bluff called. ‘And you’re in a good defensive position. Nevertheless, it
is
defensive, you’re bottled, and we outnumber you eight times over. Do you look for help from Beronnen? Let them try it; our shipmasters will be gleeful at the plunder. Do you count on the humans? Why, they haven’t even stirred to rescue those two of theirs that I hold.’

‘Don’t underestimate them, friend. I’ve seen what they can do.’

‘Do you suppose I worked, fought, schemed throughout these years as I’ve done, without learning a great deal about them and taking it into my reckonings? My hostages only confirm what I knew. They’re here for knowledge, they’ll bargain with whoever can best slake that thirst, and they
won’t fight without provocation that I’ll make sure they never get.’

Arnanak paused. ‘You are right about our not laying siege, One-Ear,’ he continued. ‘We’ll storm you. Unless you take my terms. Can you in honor refuse them on behalf of your folk?’

‘Yes,’ Larreka said. ‘I do.’

Arnanak smiled sadly. ‘I awaited naught else. But I had to try, no? Well, then … Brother Among the Three, I wish you a bold journey into the Dark’

‘And let Them be kindly to you,’ Larreka answered, the olden words; whereafter they two embraced as the Faith enjoined, and went their separate ways.

Toward evening the wind shifted around and strengthened, till dust hazed stars and made a thick, hollow-sounding darkness when neither moon was in sight. Under cover of this the barbarians moved their gear into position. It included the engines they took from those troopers who went north to regain Tarhanna. At the earliest dawn-flush they started shooting, with these and with bows and slings. When the Sun rose, well-nigh red as the Rover, it saw a full battle.

Arrows whistled in sky-covering flights, stones went
whoo-oo-thump,
a steady barrage to keep down the heads of legionary sharpshooters. Thus halfway protected, Valenneners worked catapults and trebuchets to cast heavy missiles at the walls – every few minutes, a splintering crash, a shudder through the timbers. Howls, screeches, horn blasts and drum-thunder blew from the horde which roiled on the far side of the ditch. Both suns climbed, shadows shrank, heat grew. Grit, borne on gibing air, stung eyes and crunched between teeth.

Larreka moved about to supervise. A standard-bearer on the walkway above him held his personal flag on a long pole. Every commandant adopted an emblem on taking his vows. Among other values, it showed where he was, for those who might want to find him in a hurry. Of course, it attracted enemy fire too; however, Larreka figured he should be used
to that. His device had puzzled many: a hand that pointed a shortsword skyward was clear, but not the English motto ‘Up Yours’.

There were orders to give– ‘Get these love-tokens collected to send back’ – and words to say– ‘Good work, soldier,’ especially if the fellow had been hit – and surveillances to make and occasional things to do himself.

For a time, the archers who could shelter in towers and bartizans repelled attempts to throw planks over the ditch. Naked barbarians reeled back, ripped by shafts and quarrels, or tumbled down the slope to lie impaled as the life ran purple out of them. But they got one trebuchet close and it kept hammering until a particular bartizan and its neighbor sagged into ruin. Nothing covered that sector save the bastion between; and a sleet of arrows had taken its crew.